


Could Have Beens

by stupidmuse_hatesme



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Slash, fairytale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-15
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 02:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidmuse_hatesme/pseuds/stupidmuse_hatesme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are lots of little drabbles that don't really have a home...If you would like to give one of them one, just let me know! <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Why Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today in my American Lit. class my teacher mentioned this happening to him--the finding the note thing and what it said. While studying at the library during Uni. So I decided to steal the idea and use it for my own nefarious purposes. Mwahahaha!

When John was in Uni, he spent quite a lot of his time in the library reading and studying for his courses and practicums. Medical texts were not cheap. He couldn’t afford to buy everything he needed and still afford a flat and school. So he spent his time in the University library. Sometimes he went to a local one, but he mostly spent his time at Uni.

It seemed like he spent all of his time there, really.

Following that, it wasn’t surprising that he saw lots of odd things amongst the stacks of books. He saw a man and a woman having sex once, and two men snogging another. Neither bothered him–he just moved on to another stack of books (although the cat perched on a student’s shoulder as he browsed the shelved _did_ give John pause).

The one thing that really stuck with him, however, was a slip of paper that fell out of a book whilst he was reading it. He stooped to pick up what he assumed was a bookmark and realized it had a question written upon it.

 _Would you rather marry someone you loved, or someone who loved you?_

He blinked at the smooth handwriting and wondered what sort of person would leave such a question in an anatomy book of all places?

“Someone who loved me, of course,” he murmured aloud with a puzzled frown. “If I could find someone who only loved me–I would be happy.”

He kept the slip of paper in his wallet for years. He never admitted it to anyone, but the question really bothered him. He’d never consciously thought of such a thing before and once he had, he couldn’t push it out of his mind.

“What do you think?” he wanted to ask Mary while making love to her shortly before he was deployed for the second time. “Would you be satisfied with loving me, or would you prefer that I love you?”

But when she finally admitted that she loved him and that she wanted to get married, he realized that he didn’t love her in return–and that he wanted to.

“I’m sorry,” he told her before he left. “You deserve someone who loves you deeply in return.”

After that, he scoffed at the folded and well-worn note in his wallet. Why choose one or another? He wanted both. He wanted an intense and mutual love between he and whoever he chose to marry.

When civil partnerships became a legal way for same-sex to marry, he asked Bill (after an enthusiastic round of sex), “do you love me?”

He thought he loved Bill–that’s why he asked. And if Bill loved him in return, when they went back to England they could marry. They got along well, they had good sex–it would be perfect.

But Bill laughed and said, “didn’t I say? I’ve got a girl back home.” He dug in his clothing and fished out a creased and worn photo. “This is Anny–we’re due to be married when I next go home.” He smiled warmly at the photo, his attention diverted from John. “We’re going to have a little baby girl in a few months.”

That was when John realised that perhaps he had been a little naive.

“But sure, I care for you, John.”

And _that_ was when he realised that he would probably have to settle in order to marry. Or be content with loving someone and not being loved in return.

So when he found himself in bed with an utterly brilliant (and mad) man of the name Sherlock he stayed up long past when the detective had fallen asleep and had watched the younger man’s dusky eyelashes flutter against his cheeks.

“It’s okay if I’m the only one in love,” John murmured as he stroked his hands through the soft and tumbled curls. “It’s okay if you don’t love me back. I still want to be with you forever.”

John fell asleep with the naked man in his arms and hoped that he could lay like this in bed for every day of the rest of his life.

The next day when he was looking in his wallet for his bank card, he pulled out the fuzzy and creased paper he had found so many years ago for one last look before he tossed it in the trash.

To his surprise, it had been altered.

 _  
~~Would you rather marry someone you loved, or someone who loved you?~~   
_   
_Why not have both?_

John fondly rubbed his thumb over the familiar handwriting and smiled.

Why not indeed.


	2. New World

“John, how in the _world_ does an injury to your flipper effect your tail?”

John allowed himself to roll over so that he was staring up at the rippling sky rather than his sister and said in a cross voice, “I’m telling you, Harry, my flipper is hurt too. They both effect my swimming.”

“What kind of seal can’t swim properly, John? You can’t get fish, you can’t contribute to the family–you’re worthless!”

“Thanks, Harry!” John snarled and snapped his sharp teeth at his sister. He would have turned tail an swam away, but thanks to his injury, all he could do was flop back over and glare at her. “Remind me of my deficiencies, why don’t you. What about yours, huh? You’re the one with the seaweed problem.”

Her lip trembled and her eyes seemed to well up with tears–if that was possible underwaters–and she made a keening sound before saying, “you promised you wouldn’t bring that up after Clara left, John!”

John huffed and turned away. He didn’t really care anymore.

She was right. He couldn’t contribute. He was a dead weight. No one wanted him as a mate and one of these days no one was going to take pity on him anymore and he was going to starve. But.

He looked towards the surface of the ocean.

That wasn’t his only choice.

So he swam for it and when he broke water he snorted water out of his nose and looked to shore. He didn’t appear to be that far away, so he dove back down and made his weaving way toward it. The closer he got the stranger it seemed to swim. It got harder and harder and it was less of a wiggle and more of a flail. His skin became loose around him and his lungs needed air.

Then he was there.

He threw himself onto the beach, gasping, and realized that he wasn’t a seal anymore. It was as easy as that. The sand was gritty against his bare skin, _bare skin,_ and his fur was a wet cape draped over his gangly body. He had fingers and toes with which to clutch at the sand and as he ran his tongue across his teeth he realised they were much flatter than he was used to.

“Fascinating,” he heard a deep voice say.

It was nothing like the language of the seals, and something he had only heard as a young child when his mother used to take he and Harry to visit their father. It was beautiful.

“Am I to assume that you are a selkie?”

John looked up through the grit on his eyelashes at the man standing above him and fell in love.

“Yes. I’m John.”

The man crouched down and reached out with shaking fingers to gently caress John’s hair. The selkie closed his eyes and lay still under the ministrations.

“Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sherlock,” John murmured. “Nice to meet you.”

“Oh but you _are_ fascinating,” Sherlock murmured. "Endlessly fascinating."


	3. You Look Good Without Your Shirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hahahaha--What?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when I watch too many Maroon 5 videos (i.e. This is Love, Moves like Jagger, and Misery).

John can't believe that he's here.

"Why am I here again?" he asks his buddy. Well, he had been a buddy from before he went to Afghanistan, and he's starting to wonder if he should _keep_ him as a buddy.

"What?" he shouts back.

"Jake!" John shouts over the pulsing music. "What are we doing here?"

"Having fun!"

John is categorically _not_ having fun.

The music is an inexorable force rising all around them. It thuds in his chest and makes it hard for him to breathe. He's gasping for air amongst the crowd. His fingers are slipping on his cane and he doesn't belong here. There are young people--mostly young people--and they are dancing and hopping and gyrating and he stands out like a sore thumb.

His jacket clings to and pinches his shoulders, his button-up feeling too starched around the collar. It jabs him around the neck and reaching shaking fingers up he plucks at his top button until it pops free.

"Loosen up, Watson!" he buddy shouts, knocking their shoulders together.

This move jars John's leg and sends him stumbling into a gaggle of girls behind them.

He apologizes profusely but by their blank and confused smiles they either can't hear him, or are wondering why he's there. Good question, he thinks. He turns back to Jake, but his friend is gone.

All there is left is the crowd and the music booming over the speakers--he thinks there is a DJ but if there is, he isn't anywhere on the stage. There's the lights flashing and the crowd grinding to the music--

Then there's nothing.

The lights go out, the music goes off, and John's first reaction is to hit the floor. He grips his cane as tightly as he can in an effort not to spring into action. The enemy isn't here, he reminds himself. There's no one to fight.

Then a guitar strums.

"Good evening," a voice purrs over the mike. "Are you ready?"

The crowd _explodes._

At the exact moment it does, the spotlight hits the stage and the band begins to play.

But John doesn't notice the band, or the crowd, or the lights. His eyes are fixed on the owner of the voice who begins to sing.

He's bloody amazing.

"I have tried so very hard as hell," he sings, "to stay away from hell and live upstairs. But when I see all of your remedies, I try quite desperately to go home."

John doesn't know how he's made this song rock, or how he pulls it off with such a deeper voice than the original artist, but it draws him in like a moth to the flame.

"I can't find anything to be sad about, they say I'm doomed--but I feel fine."

Without realizing it, he's walking towards the stage. He's elbowing people aside almost casually in order to see the man more clearly.

He's shirt-less is the first thing he notices.

At first thought, John can't think of anyone who would set foot on a stage without a top on before even beginning to sing. But the doctor can see sweat already beginning to bead and collect on the man's sharp collar bones under the hot lights in front of the raging crowd.

He isn't a stranger to them. John can tell.

He looks ethereal. He should look silly--being so pale under the lights--especially with such dark hair. But all John can see is the man's sharply jutting hips, his trim waist, and....

His absolutely amazing blue eyes locked right on him.

"But if I sit here lonely, with no one to hold me, at least I'll have my health, I'm trying to control myself."

His voice is like chocolate. It rumbles through the mike and across the screaming crowd (where is Jake? He doesn't think he cares). But although the man is standing in front of a band and is singing to the crown--his eyes are locked on John's. (John vaguely remembers this being a trick to make the audience pay more attention--people like having the focus on them) But John is frozen. He can't move and he can't think. The man is crooning into the mike with a voice that should be illegal, sweat is sliding down his lean body and his curls tumble around his ears sinfully.

Grey eyes, dusky lashes lowering over them, stare straight at John.

The doctor has no air left.

He can't say how many songs are in the set, and he's not sure he stays for all of them. He can't. The man up on that stage is untouchable. He's something that John wouldn't have even had a chance with _before_ Afghanistan, let alone after. He is a man who can rock going shirtless as soon as he steps foot on stage. He wears sinfully tight dark jeans and little else (John isn't even sure he was wearing shoes) like he's not half-naked at all. He was completely unselfconscious about his riotous curls and treasure-trail creeping below his belt-line.

In other words--he's perfect.

John is not.

So he shoves his way out of the club. He can't stay any longer. The people are pressing in on him. He's no longer hearing the screams for the anonymous singer on the stage--he's hearing the yells of heavy artillery and his team yelling above gunfire. He's hearing women and children screaming as they flee their villages. He hears the agony of his leg like an audible beat thumping through him.

 _Cripple. Cripple. Cripple._

He finds himself leaning against a brick wall in an alley nearby, taking careful and deep breaths of the late and crisp air. He looks up, but he can't see the stars. Of course he can't. He's in London after all.

A cloud forms in front of his face with each exhalation of carbon dioxide from his body and he takes to watching that to calm himself down.

He's in London, he reminds himself.

"Afghanistan," a voice says from the shadows. "Or Iraq?"

John shoves off from the wall so fast that he loses his grip on his cane and it clatters to the ground. But he's standing with his feet planted widely (a fighting stance) and his fists are clenched against his legs. "What?" he demands. "Who's there?"

The man from the stage steps from the shadows.

John's breath catches in his throat. He's not half-naked anymore. In fact, he looks almost nothing like the man from the stage (discounting the fact that he's still as sexy as hell). He, somehow, managed to change in a short amount of time into an blue green button-up covered by a two-piece suit in what John thinks is a dark charcoal, but can't tell in the low light of the alley.

The two top buttons of the shirt aren't buttoned.

John swallows harshly.

"Afghanistan," the man repeats, "Or Iraq? I can't tell, to be perfectly honest."

"Afghanistan," John grits out. "How did you know that?"

His intense eyes locked onto the doctor's, he walks closer and slips his hands into his trouser pockets. "Oh," he dismisses. "That wasn't hard at all. What I would like to know, however, is what a military man like you was doing in a club such as that one?"

John glares at him. "I'm not in the army any more."

This appears to startle a laugh out of the posh bloke, a deep and rumbling laugh that shoots straight to John's toes. "Too right, that," he agrees.

"I could say the same to you," John shoots back. "Ask you what a posh bloke like yourself was doing up on that stage without his shirt on."

"Now," the man chides, stepping even closer (John can smell his sweat). "That would be telling."

He leans closer and now John can smell his natural scent (sulfur) and what he thinks might be the man's shampoo (melaleuca).

"221B Baker Street," he murmurs straight into John's ear.

Then he turns and walks away.

"What?" John starts to ask. "What the hell?" he shouts.

The man pauses and looks back. "You're looking for a flatmate, correct? Although, I would be amenable to other things."

Dear God, John thinks. Amenable. Other things. He swallows. "How did you know that?"

The man sighs. "Don't ask stupid questions," he says wearily. "It's tiresome."

"No, really," John urges. "How did you know that I was looking for a place to live?"

The man turns fully around and winks. "That's my secret. Are you interested?"

"Oh God yes," John says impulsively.

The man smiles.

"But," John starts.

The man raises an eyebrow, smile suddenly beaten into submission. "Yes?"

"I don't know anything about you," he says.

Now the man grins. "That's the beauty of it, isn't it? The name's Sherlock Holmes."

Then he whirls around and walks away without looking back.

Artists, John thinks ruefully. Then he thinks of the sweat hidden beneath the man's, beneath _Sherlock's_ collar, and has to press his hand to his fly.

Could be interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song referenced is Control Myself by Maroon 5 (which is nearly _impossible_ to find to listen to, I'm warning you. Also, I typed this straight into the editing pane, just fyi (when the plot bunny strikes...).


End file.
